


First Lady

by misura



Category: Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President
Genre: Community: fic_on_demand, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patricia in 2004.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Lady

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted June 2007

Maria calls about once a week - usually, she asks for Rachel, and sometimes, she asks for Kenneth, calling him by his first name as if he's just an old friend, an acquaintance from way back, instead of the most powerful man in the United States.

Kenneth should say something about it, Patricia thinks, but every time she tells him so, he just laughs and tells her he's glad there are people like Maria out there; good, honest people whom he's proud to call his friends. They don't talk about the time when it looked like Maria would end it all, upset all of their carefully made plans for the future - Patricia not because she feels it would be undignified and beneath her, and Kenneth (she suspects) because while he's not enough of a fool to forget, he does forgive, far too easily, in Patricia's opinion.

She doesn't want to make him feel like she's a nag, anyway; she's got Kenneth and she's got Rachel, and Maria, when it comes down to it, has got nothing at all. Rachel mentions her, sometimes, but she talks about Maria like a distant relative, and about Patricia like her mother, so that's fine. Kenneth never mentions her at all, unless Patricia brings her up first - a lesser woman, Patricia thinks, might get suspicious at that, but she's got people keeping an eye on Maria, making sure she stays away from Kenneth, and they assure her that Maria might be infatuated with Kenneth, but that there's nothing more than that going on, nothing that might pose a threat to the picture-perfect happy family living in the White House.

It's only after an overheard comment by one of the security-people that it occurs to Patricia to wonder why it's always her number that Maria gets put through to - someone calling the President or any member of his family doesn't simply get that person on a direct line; their phones would never stop ringing if it was that easy. There's an entire room full of people to answer calls citizens make to their president, or their first lady, and the only calls Kenneth gets are the reports from the people who, at the end of the day, review all the calls that have come in in that room and decide which ones he should know about and which ones aren't important enough - in summary, of course, like when there were fifty-three calls from people in Atlantis City to express concern about the plans for the new stadium.

Her mother has got her direct number, as well as Kenneth's. Rachel and Alex do, too, of course. Ellery asked for it, but Patricia smiled at her and told her 'no', feeling extremely smug. Albert Noah didn't ask - Patricia gave it to him anyway. Takashi has got Kenneth's number, she knows; she doesn't like it, yet she's learned to accept it. George and Arthur have got Kenneth's, too - they don't need hers, really, so she hasn't offered it to them. And Maria, it would seem, has got her direct number, yet not Kenneth's.

It doesn't make sense, when she first comes to that conclusion. There's nothing between her and Maria, nothing except bad blood, the envy of someone who's not even a lover for the wife, and Rachel. Added to that, there's the fact that Maria always asks for Kenneth or Rachel, and Patricia always puts her through as quickly as possible, before she can say something the media will make her regret later on, because the first lady can't go around snapping at poor, unfortunate citizens to stop calling her husband or her daughter. It's a small comfort that Maria doesn't seem to like her either, and is as eager to get rid of Patricia as Patricia is to get rid of her.

"Why did you give that woman my direct number?" Patricia asks one evening, not bothering to clarify who she's talking about. "Why didn't you give her yours, or Rachel's?"

Kenneth shrugs, then smiles faintly. "I'd hoped the two of you might get along if you got to know one another a bit better. I can tell her to stop calling, if you'd like."

Patricia thinks it over and sighs. "No need."

She's the first lady - she can make friends with an unfortunate woman whose child she's raised as her own, if that will make her husband happy.


End file.
